It’s no secret that fast food, while tasty, is overall just not healthy. In fact, eating fast food can negatively affect much more than your waistline. Researchers have found that a diet high in fast food—and its essential components such as bad fats, sodium, and sugar—can have effects on your brain, your bones, and your mood.
So what happens if you stop eating fast food?
Your jeans will fit better.
Fast food is packed with sodium, and you can easily consume most of your daily allowance in one meal. At McDonald’s, a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and medium fries contains 1,630 milligrams of sodium while a Quiznos 8″ Chicken Mesquite sub has 2,230 milligrams. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 milligrams a day, moving toward an ideal limit of no more than 1,500 milligrams, so you can see how these meals are not helping you there.
See, the body copes with this influx of salt by holding on to water to maintain the proper sodium balance in the body. That’s when you experience bloating. Stop eating fast food and just watch the bloat subside, allowing your jeans to fit better.
You lower your risk of heart disease.
Eating fast food more than twice a week makes you 1.5 times more likely to develop heart disease than people who infrequently or never eat it, a study published in the journal Circulation found. The high fat and sodium content of fast food is to blame. In fact, if Americans reduced their sodium intake, there would be 120,000 fewer cases of heart disease, 66,000 fewer strokes, and 99,000 fewer heart attacks each year, according to the British Medical Journal.
You improve your memory and ability to learn.
It’s not just years of relying on the fried food of these restaurants that will affect your body, either. Mice who ate a diet of junk food displayed memory loss and a lack of cognitive ability after just one week, according to a study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Sorry to break it to you, but those effects extend to humans, too.
Your mood improves.
Think a Whopper with cheese is comfort food? Think again. Eating fast food is associated with a higher rate of depression, and the risk gets higher the more fast food that’s eaten, a study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition found. The reason may lie in a separate study published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity: Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that women who ate a diet high in foods that trigger inflammation—such as soft drinks, refined carbs, red meat, and margarine—had a 41% higher risk of depression over 12 years compared to women who ate a diet rich in inflammation busters like health fats, vegetables, coffee, and wine. So, alright, that black coffee from McCafe gets a pass.
If you feel that getting help with nutrition choices are high on the agenda, simply grab a personalised meal plan that works with your lifestyle and goals here
Once you have the plan, you can start being proactive with other life choices that will also help to increase your moods.
